


Variables

by GoddessofBirth



Series: Spiral-verse [2]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: F/M, Family, Forgiveness, M/M, Polyamory, Secrets, Spiral!verse, Triad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5034346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Furyan and a doctor walk into a room...</p>
<p>Simon and Riddick have a conversation after Jiverick reclaims <em>Serenity</em>.  Set chronologically between <em>Conversation</em> and <em>Ingrediants</em>.</p>
<p>(all old Spiral!verse stories can be found here:  http://goddessofbirth.livejournal.com/213532.html)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variables

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is still around from the LJ days.... 
> 
> Really more of an attempt to get back into all their heads after so much time has passed.

They hadn’t been back long enough for the vibrations under his feet to feel familiar again. To feel like home. Not that _Serenity_ had ever really been his home, even when he had lived there. No physical location ever had, although _Seraphim_ came the closest. His home was in his Fury, and later, in both she and Cobb. He had never loved _Serenity_ as had River.

Still, he had learned all of her quirks in those early days, what each shake and shiver and rumble meant, long before his fate had come, and even longer before they’d been forced to run to keep themselves whole. And now, finding himself back in her corridors, it was time to make her acquaintance again. He couldn’t keep his family safe if he couldn’t anticipate the variables.

The door hissed open, loud in the silence of the night cycle, causing Cobb to shift in his sleep, his fingers twitching where they rested on the rounded swell of River’s belly. Riddick paused for them to settle before stepping into the cool, dry air of the hall. His bare feet made no noise as he flexed them against the grating, and he waited in the darkness until the door slid seamlessly shut behind him.

The air was 2.5 degrees cooler than Seraphim’s, and 1 degree cooler than Reynolds had kept it five years ago. It smelled mustier. Older. Ship must be due for a tune up and some new filters. It didn’t worry him; Kaylee knew what she was about, even if her captain’s desire to stay flying might tempt him to skimp. Some incident or the other before Riddick had come aboard had caused him to defer to her judgment.

He continued his trek through the ship, his walk a slow, roiling stalk. Enemies often wore the face of friends, but it was less that worry than an ingrained inability to drop his guard around anyone but his bondmates.

The crew had shifted quarters since they had left. Simon and Kaylee had been banished to the rooms farthest from Reynolds. Punishment for daring to have _two_ more children in the intervening years. Inara was still in residence - a surprise, considering her role in their departure - but while her belongings were firmly in her shuttle, Riddick wasn’t convinced she was actually sleeping there.

As he approached the cargo bay, _Serenity_ spoke to him. Just a word, just a tremor, just a slight skip in her usual babble. Just enough to let him know he was no longer alone. Someone else was awake at this ungodly hour, and the weak half shine of lights set to 50% filtered back through the railings. Riddick slipped his goggles down over his eyes, but when he reached the top of the stairs he had to stifle the instinctive growl that rumbled up from his chest.

The brother.

With effort, Riddick redirected the growl, clearing his throat instead. Simon, caught out in the process of unloading a handful of crates from one of the smuggler holes, lurched, banging his head and cursing as he caught sight of Riddick and pushed himself to his feet.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Riddick ambled down the stairs, steps long and easy as he swallowed the animal and did his best not to bare his teeth. “You’re up late.”

“Ah…yes. I couldn’t sleep.” Simon tugged on his ear and swallowed before he gestured to the meager mess at his feet. “After the three of you…left…we weren’t sure what to do with your things. You, ah, didn’t take anything with you.”

Riddick grinned toothily, stepping off the bottom stair and propping his body against the railing with his elbow. “I seem to recall we weren’t given much time to pack.”

Simon looked down at the grating and swallowed hard, then raised his head and looked Riddick squarely in the eyes. “Yes.” Then he cleared his throat and continued. “We didn’t know what to do with your things. “Mal, ah…we considered selling some of it—” Riddick would bet it was only he and Cobb’s thing that were ever in that consideration. “—but in the end I hoped…I think we both hoped that you might all come back eventually. So we put it here. I thought you might like it back.”

Riddick caught sight of a muzzle poking its way out of the hidey hole, and it took him longer than it should have to realize it was Vera. Her sale would have brought a tidy sum to the ship, and Riddick was unwillingly grateful Simon had convinced Mal to hold on to the gun. Cobb would be pleased.

He joined Simon by the crates, nudging a top open with his toe to reveal of mishmash of his and River’s things. “Not exactly happy to be here.”

A small smile turned the corner of Simon’s mouth. “That’s funny. According to my sister, you practically twisted her arm to get her here.”

Riddick was fairly certain his hearing still hadn’t completely returned to normal after that argument. “Still doesn’t mean we’re happy about it.”

“I know. But I’m grateful. She’ll need a doctor and—”

“Plenty of doctors in the system. Even with the warrants.” Which had, of course, been River’s counterargument.

“Fine, then. There are plenty of other doctors. But not doctors that are her family. Not doctors that know her—”

Riddick cut him off, his voice low and dangerous. “ _We know her_.”

Simon rolled his eyes, so eerily like River that Riddick shivered. “Exactly. Which is why you came back. I think Kaylee’d kiss you if she thought she could get away with it.” She _had_ kissed Cobb, a loud and messy smack on the cheek. Something angry and feral had tried to rear its head, which had only abated when Cobb had playfully shoved her toward River with a “Gorramit, Kaylee, you gonna give me Simon cooties.”

The self satisfied smirk faded from Simon’s face and he tucked his hands into the pockets of trousers. “I’m sorry. River and I have made our peace but I know I still owe those words to you and Jayne. We were wrong—”

“No fuck.”

“—we were _wrong_. But you have to understand that my whole entire life has revolved around protecting my sister. Saving her. I couldn’t see—” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, running a tired hand over his face. “To be honest I still don’t understand. I can’t lie and say I do. But I should have trusted her to know her own mind.” Simon drew in a deep breath, more of a reverse sigh than a need for oxygen. “So I have to thank you…all of you…for giving us another chance.” He stuck his hand out, fingers steady as he held Riddick’s eye.

Simon had always had more spine than it appeared at first blush. It would have been easier for him to lie. To say he’d had an epiphany or that Inara had talked him around. Smarter, probably, with the mood Riddick had been in since they’d returned, having to tiptoe around _Serenity’s_ oh so delicate feelings. Instead he had chosen truth. Let Riddick know exactly where they stood. He could grudgingly respect that, if nothing else.

He slowly extended his hand and clasped Simon’s. “Hope we don’t regret it.”

Simon gave that half smile again, but didn’t counter with reassurance. Instead he nudged a crate with his foot, and Riddick noticed for the first time that his feet, too, were bare. Had he ever seen him without shoes? 

“Do you want to help sort through this? Mal just dumped everything. He was doing the whole being upset but pretending—”

“—not to be pissed,” Riddick finished for him. “Surprised he didn’t burst nothin’.”

Simon hummed under his breath before carefully sitting next to one of the boxes, tucking his legs crosswise. He looked expectantly at Riddick. Riddick thought regretfully about prowling the ship, he thought longingly about returning to the cabin to curl back up with his mates, and then he thought resignedly about Fury putting a hand each on he and Cobb’s shoulders before they had breached the locking seal between _Seraphim_ and _Serenity_ , saying quiet and firm, _‘Peace,’_.

“Yeah, alright,” he said finally, dropping down beside the crate he had already opened. There wasn’t much they had left behind that had been missed. River’s art supplies, maybe, and a bric-a-brak of weaponry on all of their parts. Vera had likely been the biggest loss, even though Cobb had never mentioned it. Riddick lifted out a black box, plain and heavy and with a lock that had been clearly jacked post-exodus. He barked out a laugh before he could stop himself, imagining the look on Reynolds’ face when the man had unwittingly opened the lid to his and Fury’s toy box. Man noses around in shit that isn’t his, he deserves what he gets.

Riddick set the box in one of four slowly growing piles, the one he mentally labeled _ours_.

“He didn’t burst anything.” Simon picked up the conversation as if it had never been dropped. “But he came very close to driving Inara from the ship for a second time. I doubt very much she would have come back this time. Operative or no.”

“Nobody but himself to blame if he had.” Riddick had no sympathy for the Captain. He certainly didn’t understand why Inara _hadn’t_ left.

“There’s never anyone but himself to blame. He knows that. He always has.”

There was silence for a moment, then Riddick said, “Think you might should be pointin’ that finger in your own direction.”

Another tight lipped smile. “Oh, I do. But we survived. We always do.” He tossed a pile of clothes onto the _Jayne_ pile. “And now the three of you are back. So.”

“So.” It wasn’t water under the bridge, no matter how Simon might want to play it. There were moments Riddick caught Cobb seething so hard he didn’t know how he was managing not to break. Times Riddick might move too quickly, and Reynold’s hand would fly halfway to his holster before he manage to catch himself. 

While the women spent hours cloistered together in Inara’s shuttle, or Zoe’s quarters, laughing and whispering and sharing stories, the men warily circled one another, struggling to figure out how to trust each other again.

Riddick cracked open the last crate and stopped. A small, stuffed bunny sat on the top of the jumbled mess, staring at him with its one remaining black, beady eye. He glared back suspiciously, then picked it up by its ears and sniffed it. He’d never seen it in River’s things, and while he’d thought Simon had rescued River with little more than the clothes on their backs, the thing smelled old, like she’d had it for years.

“Didn’t know Fury had things from before.” Before the drills, before _Serenity_ , before _him_.

“Hmm?” Simon looked up absently from where he was debating between the _Riddick_ and _ours_ pile for a crudely hewn shiv. Riddick nodded toward the _ours_ pile; Simon had added the shiv to it before he seemed to process what Riddick was asking and answered dismissively.

“She doesn’t. That’s Jayne’s.”

Riddick looked at Simon for a long moment and then squinted down at the rabbit, turning it this way and that. While Jayne did tend to a surprising amount of sentimentality, it usually ran in the vein of his weapons and hats (and River). Not… _woobies_.

“This is Jayne’s.” Somehow the incredulity he was feeling managed to leak into the flatness of his words and Simon looked up again.

“Yes? Well…” Simon tugged at an ear. “He keeps it.” His face screwed up as he hesitated for a handful of seconds. Riddick was about to press when Simon shrugged. “It was his sister’s.”

All the oxygen sucked out of the cargo bay, then came rushing back in again so quickly he almost choked on it. Cobb was even more closed mouth about his past than Riddick, but he and River had met Cobb’s family. Had holed up there with Cobb for a solid three weeks once when mercs had been hard on their tails. And there had never been the slightest mention of—

“Cobb doesn’t have a sister. Just Mattie.” Just Mattie and Radiant and a dead father he hated almost as much as loved.

“Well, yes. Mattie’s his only living—” Simon trailed off and narrowed his eyes. “Did you not know? Does _River_ not—?” He snapped his mouth shut on the end of the thought. “Oh.”

“How the fuck did _you_ find out?”

“Jayne told me,” Simon said simply, a slight tilt to his head as he peered at Riddick curiously.

Riddick snorted. “Tell me another one, Doc.” He could sooner imagine Jayne confiding in Vaako than Simon. Especially something so personal even River didn’t know of it.

Without warning, Simon’s face hardened, and a chill entered the air. “You forget we all existed before you came on this ship. That we existed for the year you _left her behind_.” 

It was only with great effort that Riddick kept himself from flinching at Simon’s words, kept his face expressionless and still. It was the one thing the three of them rarely discussed. No one was really to blame, but it still _hurt_ , so it was a sore spot they only rarely picked at, one layer at a time. Riddick struggled to ignore it one final time.

Then, just as quickly as the frost had come, it left. Simon closed his eyes and the tension visibly leached from his jaw. “I’m sorry. That was unfair. But you don’t understand this ship as much as you think you do. There are variables you never saw.”

Riddick bypassed the apology and said mildly, “You sound like your sister.”

“Well, there is that pesky DNA thing. What can you do.” Simon smiled briefly before carefully scooping up the _River_ pile and setting it into one of the empty crates, then doing the same with the _Jayne_ pile. “Look. If you want to know about his sister, just ask him. It’s his story, anyway.”

Riddick cradled the rabbit in his palm and stood. “Think I will.” Probably past time to talk about those other variables, too. It was possible he’d never really known _Serenity_ at all.


End file.
